‘Bad Retail’ is a work of fiction that I wrote to accompany a series of my own narrative paintings. The text was originally disseminated through a series of exhibitions in the form of printed handouts that were included alongside the visual works. The story evolved from
a simultaneous investigation of two related devices in literature and painting: anachronism and collage. These terms are linked by an act of displacement: of objects from history and of images from their source. This compositional tendency is characteristic of late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century
romantic fiction, which often refuses to conform to (and remain within) accustomed genre categories. The aforementioned narrative will be accompanied here by a series of illustrations based on the paintings and drawings that I produced in tandem with the text. The aim will be to treat the
journal submission as a form of ‘illuminated manuscript’, in which anachronism might be understood as both a verbal and a visual strategy.

The Journal of Writing in Creative Practice is the official organ of the Writing Purposefully in Art and Design (Writing PAD) network. It offers art and design institutions an arena in which to explore and develop the notion of thinking through writing as a parallel to visual discourse in art and design practice. The journal aims to extend the debates to all national and international higher educational art and design institutions.